When to use 301 redirects?

[Gemini23]

Hi, I have had problems trying to get php pages redirected to individual htlm pages with same content... as all of the php pages redirected via my control panel go to the same page... I have therefore used a 301 redirect to send about 20 old php pages to my HOMEPAGE ...as the php pages are still listed in Google - at least the customers then get the choices as to where to go.

How long should I use this 301 redirect for? and could I get penalised for using it?

[pageoneresults]

How long should I use this 301 redirect for? and could I get penalised for using it?

The goal here is to redirect the old to the new. Redirecting all those old pages to just the home page is not best practice.

Once a 301 is implemented, it remains forever in most instances. It becomes a permanent part of the sites history and should never be removed. There are of course exceptions to the rule. :)

[canadafred]

In no time at all Google will realize that the old pages no longer exist and won't send visitors that way but will send them to the new pages. I'm of the opinion that if a page no longer exists then it should be either deleted from the server or archived. There's just way too many non-existant webpages out there thinking that their hanging on to precious PageRank; for some reason.

[g1smd]

Why did you change the URLs?

You could have used a rewrite to continue using the old URLs even though the arrangement of files within the server has changed.